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Islamic State posts video appearing to show British hostage John Cantlie Islamic State posts video appearing to show British hostage John Cantlie
(about 1 hour later)
Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria have released a video that appears to show British journalist John Cantlie criticising preparations for US-led attacks on the militant group, the Site monitoring service has reported. A new propaganda video featuring the British hostage John Cantlie has been posted online by Islamic State (Isis) within hours of the launch of US-led air strikes against the group in Syria.
Islamic State (Isis) which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, has already executed two US journalists and one British aid worker in recent weeks in what it said were reprisals for American air strikes in Iraq. Appearing once again behind a desk and reading calmly from a script, Cantlie used the latest in what he says will be a series of “programmes” to condemn the military build-up in the region.
In the five-minute video, the man identified as Cantlie suggests that Barack Obama, long careful to avoid the sort of conflicts his predecessor George Bush pursued, was being sucked into a war he could not win, Site reported. In a previous video posted by the group, the freelance photographer – who has been a prisoner of Isis for 22 months – made clear that he was making the films under duress.
“The president once called George Bush’s Iraq conflict a ‘dumb war’ and couldn’t wait to distance America from it when he came into power. Now he’s being inextricably drawn back in,” the man identified as Cantlie says. In the latest five-minute video, Cantlie warns that the US and its allies were embarking upon what he describes as “Gulf War III”, adding: “Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making.”
The man, wearing an orange shirt and his hair closely cropped, describes Isis as the “most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history”, adding that it could not be greatly harmed by US politicians calling it “awful” or “vile”. His references to UK military aid to Kurdish forces and French and Danish support for military action suggest that the video was made in recent days. Other aspects of the film, such as his stubble and the state of the orange jumpsuit in which he is dressed, suggest that it may have been made at the same time as the last video in which he featured.
The video appeared to have been recorded before strikes overnight launched by US warplanes and partners on Isis targets in Syria. Against a backdrop showing cuttings from the New York Times, Cantlie, 43, introduces himself as “the British citizen abandoned my government, and long-term prisoner of the Islamic State”.
The US has been building a coalition to combat the hardline Sunni Muslim force that has seized large expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate erasing borders in the heart of the Middle East. He then quotes former CIA officer and critic of US intervention in Iraq Michael Scheuer: “Eighteen years into our war with the Islamists, the US government has given no public sign that it has the slightest awareness of what its enemies are fighting for.”
The US resumed air strikes in neighbouring Iraq in August for the first time since the pullout of American troops in 2011. Cantlie goes on: “Senior US politicians seemed content to call the Islamic State nasty names; ‘awful’, ‘vile’, ‘a cancer’, ‘an insult to our values’. But such petty insults don’t really do much harm to the most powerful jihadi movement seen in recent history.
Using a term for holy warriors, the man identified as Cantlie said: “Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making. Current estimates of 15,000 troops needed to fight the Islamic State are laughably low. The State has more mujahideen than this. “The president once called George Bush’s conflict a dumb war and couldn’t wait to distance America from it when he came into power. Now he’s been inexorably drawn back in, but he’s at pains to point out that this is not the equivalent of the Iraq war. Indeed it’s far more complicated and prone to failure.”
“This is not some undisciplined outfit with a few Kalashnikovs.” At the end of the film, Cantlie warns, on behalf of his captors, against military operations on the ground against Isis: “Current estimates of 15,000 troops needed to fight the Islamic state are laughably low,” he says. “The State has more mujahideen than this. And this is not some undisciplined outfit with a few Kalashnikovs.”
The man said the new Iraqi government, an ally of Shia Muslim power Iran, was waiting eagerly for US intervention to strengthen Iranian influence in the Middle East. He then says there will be a further “programme” posted on the internet.
While a strong opponent of Isis, which regards Shia Muslims as infidels, Iran has sent mixed signals about its willingness to cooperate with the US on defeating the militants. There was no immediate reaction from British government officials or ministers.
In public, both Washington and Tehran have ruled out cooperating militarily on Isis. But in private, Iranian officials have voiced a willingness to work with Washington to combat Isis though not necessarily on the battlefield. Cantlie was kidnapped in November 2012 along with the US photographer James Foley, whose murder was filmed by Isis and posted online last month.
It was the second time Cantlie had been abducted in Syria: earlier that year he was held for seven days before being freed by a rival opposition group.
There has been no mention in either of Cantlie’s films about the other western hostages held by Isis. They are thought to number more than a dozen, and include Alan Henning, 47, a taxi driver from Greater Manchester who was kidnapped last December after volunteering to join his Muslim friends on an aid convoy to Syria.
Muslim clerics around the world have been appealing for the release of Henning after he was shown in a previous Isis video, which also depicted the murder of Scottish aid worker David Haines.